Two Students, One Faculty Member Recognized at Annual Colloquium
Two undergraduate students and one faculty member were honored for their commitment to improve the status of women during the annual awards ceremony at the 2009 Gender and Sexuality Studies Program Colloquium on April 2.
Each year, the Gender and Sexuality Studies Program awards a student the Dr. Virginia J. Cyrus Scholarship in Gender Studies and a faculty, staff member or administrator with the Sadie Ziegler-Bernice Gee Award.
This year, scholarships were awarded to Tracey Belbina, a junior Liberal Studies major, and Maria Gullo, junior Psychology major. Dr. John Hillje, associate professor of History, was this year’s Ziegler Gee Award recipient.
Belbina, a British native, was nominated for her willingness to approach difficult issues and speak eloquently and honestly about experiences that have shaped her life as a woman, wife and mother.
Belbina wrote Mama, a raw and heartbreaking memoir of the abuse her mother experienced, and was encouraged to submit it for publication to HerStory, a new feminist literary journal created by Rider students.
As part of her community action project for GND 200: Introduction to Women’s Studies, Belbina set up and coached a Muslim girls’ soccer team. During the experience, she worked with Muslim parents to help them accept their daughters’ participation in this sport. She taught her classmates about a culture that does not just discourage, but often forbids, young women’s participation in athletic activities.
“Tracey embodies the spirit of the Virginia Cyrus Scholarship. She is an excellent scholar and a leader that young women cannot only admire, but emulate in their own lives,” said Dr. Kelly Noonan, director of the Gender and Sexuality Studies Program, during the awards ceremony.
Gullo, who is a Gender and Sexuality Studies minor, was nominated for her work on HerStory, which debuted March 25.
“Through Maria’s work on HerStory, Maria doesn’t only show the potential to improve the status of women but has already done this,” Noonan said.
The goal of the journal is to present contemporary feminist issues, while inspiring and uniting female students by offering a mixture of fiction, nonfiction, visual art, photography, interviews, plays, poetry and prose. The journal received more than 70 submissions and 26 were featured in the first edition.
Hillje, one of the founding faculty members of the Women’s Studies Program (now the Gender and Sexuality Studies Program), has worked for gender equity in the classroom, in the curriculum, and in the Rider University community for at least three decades.
“John’s contributions to the intellectual and collegial community within the Gender Studies Program have been many,” Noonan said. “We all appreciate his work, and we, as colleagues, look to him as a model, one who persistently and modestly works for gender equity.”
Hillje created the course Women in American History, in which students learn about women’s diverse contributions to the history of America, and they learn about the historians who created the field of women’s history. Several of his students’ essays have been awarded statewide prizes in competitions.
The Cyrus Scholarship was established in memory of the late Virginia Cyrus, the founding director of the Women’s Studies Program at Rider and a professor of English. Full-time and part-time Rider candidates must have completed Introduction to Women’s Studies, and show academic promise and the potential to improve the status of women through scholarship and/or activism.
The Ziegler Gee Award was established in 1986 to honor outstanding role models for women. It is named in honor Sadie Ziegler and Bernice Gee, two women whose service to Rider University totaled 88 years, according to Dr. Walter Brower ’48, a retired professor and the University historian. Ziegler began in 1909 after her graduation and worked as the secretary of the college before becoming secretary to the Board of Trustees upon its formation in 1937. Gee began work in 1917 as the treasurer of the college. “They were both absolutely committed to Rider; it was their life,” Brower attested.
